‘What do you mean, the tower is gone?’: thieves steal 200ft structure from Alabama radio station | Alabama::Small radio station forced to go silent after ‘unbelievable’ theft of giant tower, which would cost over $100,000 to replace
Carmen Sandiego level crime
I was thinking Despicable Me level, but that’s probably because my kid is obsessed with that movie.
For those wondering like me, that’s a bit over 60m in rest of the world units.
That’s crazy.
I hate organised crime, but damn, part of me just finds this so impressive that I’m not even angry
This was simply a meth heads, or junkies, with the right power tools, heavy equipment, and knowledge.
They’ve either already sold it for scrap, have one of the biggest ever private HAM repeaters in their backyard, or possibly duct taped it to their now collapsed roof.
So the missing tower was discovered by a landscaping crew, did nobody trust listens to the radio notice?
AM radio? Anyone who is listening to that probably doesn’t have a phone to call anyone about it, inside their Mad Max bunker.
But my company absolutely has a dedicated target audience we boast about to potential advertisers.
Or they might not know what country code to use since some of that AM stuff gets broadcasted really far.
Apparently this was their AM feed and most people listen to their FM feed. And they’d been doing maintenance lately where they’d be down for days at a time, so may not have seemed unusual.
Plus they’re a really small station and their listener base skews old and people are kinda apathetic.
The bigger problem I guess is that they themselves appear not to have been doing anything to monitor the signal as required by the FCC. But I really doubt they get audited much or ever.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Elmore said the theft was first discovered last week by a landscaping crew that regularly manages the area nearby the tower, WBRC reported.
The radio tower was previously located in a wooded area, behind a local poultry plant.
Elmore quickly reported the theft, but said that local police were equally surprised at the brazen robbery.
About six months ago, a nearby radio station had their air conditioning unit, copper pipes and other materials stolen.
Elmore isn’t sure if the robberies are connected, but believes thieves may have targeted WJLX’s tower and transmitter to make a quick buck from selling the metal.
Elmore added that the station is working to get the AM tower up to get back on the air, but will resume their broadcasts online in the meantime.
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How the fucking fuck do you pull off something like this?
Aliens!
Lucky they didn’t kill themselves. AM works by sending a FUCKton of RF energy into the tower structure. If you’re touching the tower and ground you’re going to conduct it instead and poof.
Typically towers are simple structures to elevate the actual antennas high up in the air. The towers aren’t live wires, they’re ladders with rungs for mounting.
Not AM. They’ve got an insulator at the base, the entire tower is live. There’s so much energy being transmitted you can get sparks off the fence surrounding the tower.
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It can’t be a tower like one in the picture right? There’s no way you’re stealing one like that without anyone noticing
Some of these installations are quite rural.
I bet with a big box truck, some meth heads with a few angle grinders, you could get one of these down and gone in a few hours.
I do love that US radio stations actually look like they did in the cartoons, with a massive tower with red blinking lights next to the building.
